Gunda with Victor Kossakovsky

In this episode, we feature a conversation with the legendary filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky about his recent film GUNDA.I have been a fan of Kossakovsky’s work since one of his first films, THE BELOVS (1993), which is a portrait of simple village life, sometimes tender and sometimes harsh, captured mostly in a steady observational gaze until the last scene where we are shaken by the filmmaker’s camera work. In Kossakovsky’s latest film, GUNDA, again, Kossakovsky delivers simplicity, tenderness, and a last sequence that makes the ground shake. GUNDA is not the masterpiece within Kossakovsky’s body of work but a masterpiece of cinema. Experiential cinema in its purest form, GUNDA chronicles the unfiltered lives of a mother pig, a flock of chickens, and a herd of cows with intimacy. Using stark, transcendent black-and-white cinematography and the farm's ambient soundtrack, director Victor Kossakovsky invites audiences to slow down and experience life as his subjects do, taking in their world with magical patience and an otherworldly perspective. GUNDA asks us to meditate on the mystery of animal consciousness and reckon with the role humanity plays in it. Eka Tsotsoria moderates the conversation, where we reference the contemporary philosopher and ecologist Timothy Morton, Story of a Horse by Leo Tolstoy, and   Paulus Potter’s painting, The Young Bull.  For show notes, visit docsinorbit.com and be sure to follow us on social media @docsinorbit